Curtsies and Conspiracies by Gail Carriger

Curtsies and Conspiracies by Gail Carriger

Published: November 1st 2013 by Hachette Little, Brown & Co.

Does one need four fully grown foxgloves for decorating a dinner table for six guests? Or is it six foxgloves to kill four fully grown guests?

Sophronia’s first year at Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality has certainly been rousing! For one thing, finishing school is training her to be a spy–won’t Mumsy be surprised? Furthermore, Sophronia got mixed up in an intrigue over a stolen device and had a cheese pie thrown at her in a most horrid display of poor manners.

Now, as she sneaks around the dirigible school, eavesdropping on the teachers’ quarters and making clandestine climbs to the ship’s boiler room, she learns that there may be more to a field trip to London than is apparent at first. A conspiracy is afoot–one with dire implications for both supernaturals and humans. Sophronia must rely on her training to discover who is behind the dangerous plot-and survive the London Season with a full dance card.

Before I actually go into this review – is it just me, or does the woman on the cover look vaguely like Kiera Knightley? Anyone? Anyway… I enjoyed this book more than I did the first one. I feel like, now that I’ve gotten into the swing of things, with the steampunk etc. I actually really enjoyed myself with this book!

This book basically starts off where the previous left off. We are back at the floating finishing school – which I would totally attend, by the way. Sophronia is tested in new ways in this book, through which she learns the value of friendships and having someone to lean on. I really enjoyed watching her character growth and watching her learn more and more, both physically and socially, throughout the book.

I really enjoyed the introduction of some of the boys from Bunsons! I loved seeing Pillover again (Dimity’s brother) because we only got to see him vaguely in book one! Also… can we just swoon at Felix? I enjoyed his character and the attempts to court Sophronia (which she never really caught onto, because she believed they were just practising…). I do feel like Felix would be a better fit to Sophronia than Soap – so that is the ship I am currently with… but I am not entirely sure if a ship will even ship considering the time it is set in!

I definitely feel like this book flowed much better than the first. It didn’t contradict itself as much as the first one and I feel like, now that I’m used to the steampunk aspect of the book, I really enjoyed it. I found myself more excited to turn the pages and find out what was going to happen next!

The one thing I do feel like, with both this book and the first one, is that things start to speed up toward the end and then things happen and then it solves itself until the next part. So, I do feel like it’s a bit predictable in this sense, but it’s still pretty fun!

All in all, I much preferred this one to the first book and I am really looking forward to continuing the series! I gave this book 4/5 stars.